


Born From Ethers Tragic

by edema_ruh



Series: Delivered from the Blast [11]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alliances, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Car Accidents, Doppelganger, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Aid, Guns, Head Injury, Injury, Kidnapping, Shooting Guns, Superheroes, Superpowers, Supervillains, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-05
Updated: 2016-05-05
Packaged: 2018-06-06 11:47:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6752680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edema_ruh/pseuds/edema_ruh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Combeferre and Grantaire have to make a dangerous alliance, while the Evil-Amis start to work on their plan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Born From Ethers Tragic

_One day before_  

"Have they replied yet?" Azelma asked for what seemed to be the hundredth time in the last hour. 

"No", Gavroche replied with impatience. 

They had been locked up on Éponine's apartment ever since they finished the cells and the Amis left to defeat the Patron-Minette. They weren't stupid, they both knew the Patron-Minette was dangerous and that, without super powers, they wouldn’t be able to help further. So for once in their lives, they listened to their sister's order and stayed home until she called to let them know she was safe. 

Another half an hour passed until Éponine called back, telling them the Amis finally defeated the Patron-Minette and that they were throwing a celebrating party on the manor. Azelma smiled widely and ran to her sister's bedroom to borrow some clothes and get ready, while Gavroche tried to get every information he could from Éponine. 

When Azelma finally declared that she was ready to go, Gavroche picked up his car keys and they both hit the road. The manor was half an hour away from Éponine's apartment, if they were lucky enough to catch a good traffic. Which they weren't. 

An hour passed before they could reach the camp house and Éponine didn’t pick up when Azelma called to let her know they would be late (her sister tended to worry too much some times). When Azelma called and all she heard was a message saying her sister's phone was out of service, she frowned. 

"That's weird", she commented. "It says Ép's phone is out of service". 

"What the ever loving _fuck_?" Gavroche exclaimed, pulling the brakes abruptly. Azelma followed her brother's line of sight and the phone dropped from her hands as she gasped in surprise. 

There was a huge crater on the spot the manor used to be at, with no signs or wreckage of the manor itself inside or around it. It was as if it had simply seized existing, except it took half of the floor around with it. 

"Oh my god", Azelma exclaimed as she hopped off the car. "What happened here, Gav?" 

"I... I have no idea", Gavroche responded, feeling at a loss for words.  

"Was Ép... in there?", Azelma whispered to herself. 

"How has the hole house disappeared?" Gavroche whispered back in astonishment. 

"We need to find out what happened", Azelma frowned, hands beginning to shake. "Ép... Ép's phone is out of service, and she said they would be here, they were probably inside the house..." 

"Any surveillance we could get would have been in the manor", Gavroche said, pulling his hair back with both hands as he paced around the car. "There's no way we can access it. But how do you make an entire house vanish with no trace?" 

"Could this be some new enemy?" Azelma asked her brother. 

"Whose power is make things disappear from exis...?" Gavroche stopped himself mid-sentence, eyes suddenly widening. 

"Gav?" Azelma frowned, approaching her brother. 

"Oh, boy", Gavroche exclaimed, not looking at Azelma. "I think... I think I may know what happened?" 

He ran towards the closest edge of the crater, picking up a rock on the way only to throw it up and catch it midair. Azelma reached him in a few seconds, panting. 

"Care to share the information?" She asked, sounding annoyed. 

Gavroche threw the rock above the crater with all his strength. Before it could fall to the bottom of it, a sharp light appeared on thin air, swallowing the rock and disappearing just as fast as it had emerged. He looked back at Azelma, who was staring at the point where the rock had disappeared with wide eyes. She then looked at her brother, mouth opening and closing in surprise. 

"Is that...?" 

"I think it is". 

"But how...?" 

"Maybe Bossuet?" 

"Oh no. He erased his own time line", Azelma clicked her tongue. 

"Poor bastard". 

"But then...?" 

"It's to risky to go through" 

"We can leave it open! People could cross it from the other side!" 

"What is the other side?" 

"Are you implying what I think you are?" 

"I said risky, not impossible" 

"I really love you sometimes". 

"I know you do". 

"We can't go like this, we need to be prepared for any possibl-" 

"We can take the car". 

"We can't take the car, Gavroche!" 

"We _shouldn’t_ take the car. But we definitely _can_ take the car". 

Gavroche smirked and ran the way back to the car, ignoring the way Azelma cursed at him before following. He had just placed the car key on the ignition when a eye-stabbing light appeared beneath the crater, blinding both him and his sister for a few seconds. Gavroche tried to cover his view with both hands but then the light was gone, making him blink away the white spots on his vision. 

"Oh my god", Azelma muttered, eyes squinting. She leaned forward on her sit as if to get a better view. "Is that Enjolras?" 

Gavroche needed a couple seconds to focus his vision to where his sister was pointing. Climbing out of the crater was Enjolras, except he looked a bit... odd. He was wearing tight leather pants, with a dusty blue shirt thrown over it and a dark red jacket that fit him perfectly. His hair was messy and it looked fluffier, but it looked like it was shaved on one side. Gavroche frowned, seeing the rest of the Amis climbing out of the hole on the ground right after Enjolras. There was Combeferre, and Courfeyrac, but they all looked dusty and menacing, and then Grantaire climbed out and Gavroche realized that something was very much wrong because there was a huge scar on his cheek and that was definitely not there before. And there was no way he had hurt his face and it had scarred that fast over the course of one day. Gavroche didn’t know who those people were, but they certainly weren't his friends. 

"Start the car", Azelma whispered very quietly beside him, grabbing Gavroche's knee with all her strength as if to let her brother know how serious she was. "Right now". 

Gavroche didn’t dare to disagree. He immediately turned the key on the ignition, and couldn’t help but to cringe at the way the motor loudly came to life. There was no way the fake Amis didn’t hear that. 

He didn’t bother to look at them to check if they had seen the car, as he quickly turned it around and drove as fast as he could away from the crater. 

"They had Joly tied up", Azelma told her brother with a shaky voice, turning her head to look back at the crater as they put distance between it. "He was unconscious. Who are they?" 

Gavroche opened his mouth to answer but all he could say was a frantic "fuck!" as he had to abruptly hit the brakes of the car to avoid hitting Bossuet, who was standing on the road directly in front of it with his arms crossed. Azelma, who in their rush hadn't put the seat belt on, had her head slamming harshly against the dashboard, losing consciousness instantly. 

Bossuet was still in front of the car when the dust lowered, and Gavroche spared him a look of horror as he tried to shake Azelma back into consciousness. Then in the blink of an eye, Bossuet was beside the driver's window, a foreign smirk on his face. Gavroche only had enough time to frown at the man before everything around him swam and blurred, until he found himself standing in front of the Enjolras copy. 

Bossuet must have caught him and brought him back using his superspeed, which was something Gavroche had never experienced before. His wobbly legs gave out and he fell to his knees, emptying the contents of his stomach on the floor in front of Enjolras' feet. 

"Aw", Enjolras clicked his tongue, sounding vaguely disappointed. "I just had those cleared up". 

Gavroche cleared his mouth with the back of his hand, looking at his unconscious sister splayed on the floor beside him before glaring up at Enjolras. 

"Who are you?" Gavroche asked, venom sipping from his tone. Enjolras pouted sarcastically, crossing his arms. 

"I'm Enjolras", he said matter-of-factly. Gavroche snorted. 

"No you ain't. You sure as hell look like him, though". 

Enjolras rolled his eyes before crouching in front of the kneeling boy. 

"It doesn’t matter who I am", he said, staring Gavroche dead in the eye. "What matters is who you are, and what use you can be for me". 

"What happened to the real Amis?" Gavroche asked, looking at all the familiar faces staring down at him. Éponine was there, glaring at him unknowingly, as if she had never seen him before in her life. 

"You ask too many questions", Enjolras growled, standing up and silently looking at Bahorel. The big man nodded and marched towards Gavroche, who unsteadily got to his feet, approaching Azelma and placing himself in front of her protectively. 

"Leave us alone", Gavroche said, subtly reaching for a gun tucked on the back of his trousers. 

"You really think you can harm us with a gun?" Enjolras snorted, looking genuinely surprised. "God, people from your word really are stupid". 

Gavroche let out a shaky breath and pulled out his gun, managing to shoot Bahorel twice before the larger man caught him, pulling the gun away from his grasp and throwing it several feet away from reach. He grabbed Gavroche's by the neck and lifted the young man up until his legs were dangling above the floor. Bahorel was completely unharmed from the gunshots, staring at Gavroche with disdain as he wriggled and scratched Bahorel's hand, trying to free himself. As Gavroche's face grew red and his arms went slack, falling limply beside his body due to the lack of air, Bahorel threw the boy across the air, making him collide harshly against the floor and hit his head. 

The last thing Gavroche saw before blacking out was a large figure picking Azelma up from the floor and walking away. 

- 

"Ok, so the first thing we need to do before we decide what our course of action will be is to know our enemy", Combeferre said, pacing around the room and looking for anything that could contain info on the so called BL Industries. "We need to know who they are and why they wanted to capture our doppelgangers so badly". 

"I think we should get the fuck out of here instead", Montparnasse said from his cage, voice slightly muffled from the distance. 

"You're right", Grantaire nodded, standing up and helping Combeferre to look for anything that could help them. 

"Really, I think we should get out of here", Montparnasse said, louder this time. "These BL guys are going to come back any minute now. We should leave before they return and find us here". 

" _We_?" Grantaire growled, emptying a paper box full of scraps and searching through it. "Who said we're taking you with us?" 

"Do you really expect me to believe you'll leave me here to rot?" Montparnasse snorted. "You're the good guys". 

"And yet look where it got us", Grantaire muttered, angrily throwing the box away when he found nothing useful inside it. 

"Hey", Combeferre whispered, placing a gentle and comforting hand on Grantaire's shoulder until the man turned around to stare at him. "Don’t let him get to you". 

"I'm not", Grantaire shrugged Combeferre's hand away, kneeling on the floor to look for any clues. "If there's any information on this building, it's not on this room". 

"We should look on the higher floors", Combeferre said, placing both hands on his hips pensively. "But Montparnasse is right. BL will be back any second now". 

"I don’t think there's any easy way out of this", Grantaire turned his back, not looking at his friend. "We need to find a place to hide and lay low until we figure out why the fuck BL is after our doppelgangers. We need to learn their weaknesses if we want any chance to get our friends back". 

"But we don’t know anything about this Earth", Combeferre objected. "We don't know where to hide, or who to trust. We don’t know who knows our faces, we don’t know what our copies have done here. And we can't stay here". 

"I can help", Montparnasse said from his cell, and Combeferre rolled his eyes. 

"I would say we should stay here, but I am sure they won't leave this place untouched for much longer. If they know these Amis as well as I'm guessing they do, they know we both weren't captured. Which means they're still after us". 

"Also, we can't hope to rescue our friends right away", Grantaire nodded, "they'll be expecting us. We need to find a place to hide and plan, but where?" 

"I said I can _help_ ", Montparnasse said again, more emphatically this time. Combeferre finally gave in and walked to the cell, Grantaire close behind him. 

"Speak up", Combeferre instructed, crossing his arms and staring intently at Montparnasse. The beaten man let out a tiny laugh, lowering his head and leaning it on his arms, which were propped up by the handcuff tying him to the top of the cage. 

"You're in a tough situation here", Montparnasse started, looking nothing like the nearly charming man they had known. This way, bruised and locked inside a cage, he looked like a wounded feral animal. "You need help, I need help". 

"Just say how you can help", Grantaire urged. Montparnasse sighed before continuing, though it sounded more like he was having trouble breathing. 

"The truth is you don’t know me very well", Montparnasse scoffed. "Y'all think I'm just a crook that gained powers and became even more evil, which is, to be honest, partially true. But if the Montparnasse of this... Earth, plan, dimension, whatever you wanna call it – if he's anything like me, he'll be the guy to look for. He will know whatever you need to find about this BL thing". 

Combeferre shook his head, looking incredulous. 

"You don’t know him; you can't be sure of any of this", Combeferre said. "From what we've seen, our doppelgangers are not to be... underestimated". 

Grantaire pretended he didn’t notice the quick stare Combeferre sent towards him and approached the cage. 

"Even if what you said isn't true, which I'm assuming it isn't", Grantaire told Montparnasse. "You still seem to be a guy who knows how to survive". 

"That I am", Montparnasse smiled, bloodied teeth sending a shiver down Grantaire's spine. "I know my way around. If this world's Mont doesn’t want to help your asses, I can still find us a way to lay low until you find out how to free your friends or whatever". 

Combeferre sent Montparnasse a wary look. 

"Why would you help us?", he asked. It was Montparnasses' time to roll his eyes. 

"I want to go back to our Earth as much as you do", he said. "And you know, since you took my powers away and all, I probably won't make it back on my own. And I know you're both too in love with your codependent friends to just leave them here and get back by yourselves, so if the best shot I have of getting out of this shithole alive is helping you dicks, then I'll do it". 

Combeferre glanced at Grantaire, nodding towards the monitors showing the surveillance images. The pair made their way towards the monitors, away from the cell. 

"Alright, take your time", Montparnasse scorned. "Don't forget to keep your voices down, sugar pies, I can hear everything you say from here". 

"We know we can't trust him", Grantaire started, voice merely above a whisper. "But he does know how to survive. He may be able to help us stay alive in this world until we figure out how to help our friends". 

Combeferre sighed, biting his lower lip. 

"Either way, we have to set him free, at least", Combeferre sighed. "We can't just leave him here to die. But you're right, as much as I don't like this idea, we don't have much help or resources right now and he could come to be useful". 

"Have your powers returned yet?" Grantaire asked. 

"Not entirely, but I can feel them growing stronger every minute. What about yours?" 

Grantaire lowered his head before nodding, not looking Combeferre in the eye. 

"Same. I don’t think I can use them yet, though". 

"Neither do I", Combeferre agreed. "But we should get out of here. I don’t think it will be much longer before BL or someone else comes back. It pains me to leave potential information behind, but we don't have the time to search the building for it right now". 

They walked back to the cell, both Combeferre and Grantaire pulling the door at the same time until they finally pried it open. Montparnasse smiled weakly at them, shifting his position on the small cage so that Combeferre could free him from his chains. 

"This might sting a little", Combeferre warned, before touching the handcuff until it was covered in frost. Montparnasse hissed at the cold, but in seconds it was gone, because Combeferre applied strength to the cuffs and they broke apart as if they were made of glass. 

Montparnasse lowered his arms despite hissing in pain, joints sore from being kept in the same position for a long time. He then fell from his previous semi-suspended state, floor colliding harshly with his knees as he did his best not to pathetically curl into himself. 

"God, what did they do to you?" Combeferre asked, kneeling beside the man and adjusting his body so that he was lying on his back. Only then he realized the extension of the man's injuries, body covered in bruises and dried blood. "You need medical attention". 

"Good thing you're a doctor, then", Montparnasse managed to croak out.  

"Grantaire, help me get him on his feet", Combeferre instructed, moving aside so that Grantaire could reach for Montparnasse. They both lifted the injured man with some difficulty, ignoring the muffled whimper the crook let out on the process. "Why do I feel like we're making a mistake?" 

"How are we supposed to aid his injuries if he's the one supposed to help us hide?" Grantaire asked desperately. 

"It's nothing to serious", Montparnasse said through gritted teeth. "Just give me a couple hours". 

"You can't even stand on your on", Combeferre retorted, dragging Montparnasse's half-limp body across the hall. 

"Just use your power thing and put some ice on my wounds", Montparnasse instructed. "I'll manage to find us a place and then you can let me sleep for three days straight before you think of moving". 

"You're not actually gonna sleep for three days, are you?" Grantaire panted. 

"Have you ever heard of a thing called hyperbole?" Montparnasse rolled his eyes. 

"I can sense the next days will be great", Combeferre muttered to himself. 

- 

As promised, Montparnasse found them somewhere to stay. 

They had no money on them so neither Combeferre nor Grantaire knew how the man had managed to pay whoever rented them the room on the falling-to-pieces hotel, but he had told them not to worry. Despite Montparnasse's apparent relaxed state – or, however relaxed he could be after being beaten up and held captive -, Combeferre had told Grantaire it was better if they kept watch, which was what they did for the rest of the night, taking turns. 

As Montparnasse had warned them, there was a sharp knock on the door in the morning, and when Grantaire opened it – hands balled into fists, ready to defend the only friend he had left from possible harm – he was relieved to find a pot filled with first aid supplies right above the carpet. 

Combeferre had looked relieved himself to see the supplies, and wasted no time in tending Montparnasse's wounds. The sooner the man got better, the sooner they'd free their friends. 

And go back to their world. 

And find Joly. 

And stop their doppelgangers from whatever they were doing. 

And... move on with their lives. 

Grantaire let out a sight, the events of the previous night finally sinking into his adrenaline-filled brain. Would things ever go back to normal? He could barely look at his Enjolras in the eyes one day before, after what... Grantaire closed his eyes against the intrusive thoughts, shaking his head as if to rid himself from the memories. It hadn't been Enjolras. Not his Enjolras at least. 

But it looked and sounded and smelled and acted exactly like his Enjolras, it even teased him like his Enjolras had on that dark bedroom a thousand years ago, it even mimicked what his Enjolras had told him. And after that, whenever his Enjolras spoke, all Grantaire could think of was the way the impostor had humiliated him and abused him in front of all his friends. 

_None_ _of_ _what_ _he_ _said_ _was_ _true_ _, R._ _We_ _all_ _love_ _you_ _._ _Enjolras_ _loves_ _you_ _. He_ _knew_ _what_ _your_ _weak_ _spot_ _was_ _and_ _he_ _used_ _it_ _against_ _you,_ Combeferre's voice echoed inside his head. 

_You're_ _useless_ _,_ _worthless_ _,_ _and_ _the_ _only_ _reason_ _I've_ _ever_ _put_ _up_ _with_ _you_ _is_ _because_ _I_ _pitied_ _you,_ Enjolras' voice echoed back. Grantaire decided he had enough of that. 

He got up from his spot beside the window, where he was taking watch, and walked to the mini fridge beside the old room's door. He opened it and let out a shaky sigh of relief when he saw it was filled with not only water bottles, but also dusty beer cans that were probably expired. It was enough to get him a little drunk, at least. 

"You should rest", Combeferre said disapprovingly from where he was placing a bandage around Montparnasse's bloodied wrists. The skin was raw from all his struggles against the handcuffs. 

"I will", Grantaire said back, not looking at Combeferre. 

"You shouldn't drink that", Combeferre insisted. 

"I know", Grantaire responded. 

He pretended he didn't hear Combeferre's disappointed sigh when the man put a blanket around his shoulders as he dozed off, forehead leaning on the cold window frame and dizzy thoughts of Enjolras on his drunken mind. 

**Author's Note:**

> Firstly, sorry for taking so long to update and sorry if this chapter is kind of slow/short. The story will get more action on the future, I promise.  
> Kudos and Comments make me happy, and I'm always up to constructive criticism. You can find me on edema--ruh.tumblr.com


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